SMF

The battery in my iPod Classic has been long at the end of its life, now only holding maybe an hour or two max of power listening to music, so I decided instead of getting the battery replaced, to keep the Classic for plugged in use with my car iPod interface, and our Bose equipment at home. What really attracted me to the Nano were two things:

• iTunes integration --- yes I long ago drank this Kool-Aid and it's not going to be any time soon that I move off of this platform for music management so I figured this wouldn't be a bad purchase.
• size - this little unit fits perfectly in the case for my Bose IE earbuds so it makes for the perfect portable solution.

I have yet to really run it through its paces, but early signs are that while a bit on the expensive side, it's pretty hard to beat the Nano as a music player. The Sandisk and Sony MP3 players I had been looking at were significantly cheaper, but they didn't offer anything beyond the Shuffle in terms of functionality in my mind. The only real omissions that I'd like to see fixed would be a video and picture taking functionality as well as the clip from the previous generation to fit onto clothing, etc. Of course the camera would bring higher cost. I am looking forward to linking it to my bluetooth speaker to see what kind of play quality I'll get across the air. I expect it to be the same as my iPad Mini which is great for that.

Is it perfect? Not by a long shot -- but it is a very good unit, and like my iPad Mini -- the build quality is outstanding - very solidly built.

<<edit>>
I meant to add to my original post that I have tried the smartphone solution for music, and while I find the one device notion to be obviously more convenient, I have to admit to forgetting that it was a phone sometimes, walking away from it, missing calls, etc. -- ergo the additional device.

I've honestly never understood the appeal of the nano, especially in its current generation. I have the current Classic, which sounds great and has a huge capacity besides. Can you explain the appeal? Especially now that they no longer play videos and look like wannabe iPod touches. I have always preferred the touch and the classic over the nano and the shuffle.

I've honestly never understood the appeal of the nano

it's both cheaper and smaller. i have both a classic and a nano. the nano i carry with me, the classic is permanently plugged into my music system back at home. all i want it to do is play music.

paddy wrote:it's both cheaper and smaller. i have both a classic and a nano. the nano i carry with me, the classic is permanently plugged into my music system back at home. all i want it to do is play music.

I wasn't factoring money in, I suppose. I prefer the freedom of being able to carry my entire music library with me, as well as some movies and podcasts.

For me the size factor was simply too much for me to resist. My classic is by far the best overall music player I have from a capacity perspective. But it is heavy and awkward sometimes. The Nano is about as perfect a form factor as I can think of at the moment in terms of pure portability. I am not into the video thing but admit the FM radio is actually pretty good -- especially with the 15 minute rewind feature.

Insofar as the touch is concerned, I already have an iPad Mini and a Samsung GIII -- so the touch has zero appeal for me.

One not-so-good observation. I went to plug the nano into my aux port in my car and for some reason the right channel wasn't playing fully. It was weird as I have used that cord with other devices and they were just fine. I have to try another cord to see whether the actual headphone jack may be faulty. It works fine with my Bose earbuds and headphones. The volume is not as good/strong as my classic as well. I'd still at this stage give it a 3.9 out of 5 -- if I sort through the 3.5mm patch cable to my car audio, then it'll jump to a 4.5 out of 5.

Wendell, I've had occasional problems with certain jacks not fitting in certain ipods in certain situations, and have usually solved them with a good shove

I currently carry an Android phone and an iPod Classic (120GB) most of the time, although the Classic stays in the car 85% of that time. The nano sounds like a reasonable part of a two device solution due to its size - I almost exclusively listen to podcasts, so the other 100+GB of music and movies gets ignored most of the time.

I suspect my ideal single device would just be an iPhone with capacity for the podcasts, but battery life would be a concern. (Several of my friends have iPhones and their battery life seems better than I've seen with Android phones).

Dominic, my Samsung SII was brutal on the battery -- even with all the radios off, etc. My company's security apps seemed to really kill the battery -- not to mention the screen. I am a heavy user, and found that I had to plug into my car on the way home from work or into my pc later in the afternoon at work.

Since moving to the SIII my battery life has been much improved, but it still is nothing like the life I used to get in my old BlackBerry phones. And no -- I am not sold on the BB10 ---- having moved to Android, I can't see myself moving off of that platform for a phone.

The Nano just keeps getting better and better --- the portability is even better than I anticipated. And iTunes makes it so easy to manage my music, etc. across devices, I am very pleased --- I still haven't sorted out the jack issue yet -- but it probably is the cord or I hadn't shoved it in enough. Oh well -- I have time to sort it out. In the meantime, loving the Nano for when I fly for work travel -- it's excellent for that.

My ipod classic was recalled from Apple...got my ipod nano square shaped works great at the gym..it's just as good as the newer rectangular shaped ipod